Case Studies
For more than fifteen years, Darshan Khalsa has provided change management, business
innovation and operational improvement consulting services for small, medium and large
organizations including some of the world's largest corporations. Here are some case
studies of his experience.
Partnering at Kodak
Methodologies: Partnering, strategic planning, problem solving, business
process reengineering
Eastman Kodak, headquartered in Rochester, New York and the world's largest manufacturer
of photographic film and related products, awarded two-year renewable procurement
contracts worth over $100 million per year for personal computer products and services to
five competing suppliers in 1995. Each competitor had bid on the entire contract,
encompassing the PC lifecycle from needs determination through procurement, assembly and
software configuration, delivery, installation, training, telephone support and dispatch,
repair, asset management and retirement. Instead of making one award, Kodak awarded
different product/service arenas to each of the five competitors, leaving them with the
problem of interfacing their business processes with each other and with Kodak, yet still
requiring them to meet the contractual quality measures known as Kodak MASLs (minimum
acceptable service levels).
In addition to four incompatible mainframe computer systems that Kodak used to manage its
procurement activities, each of the competing suppliers had their own incompatible
processes, logistics and computer systems, making the difficulty of integrating these
disparate systems into one seamless operation at least an order of magnitude greater
complexity than if Kodak had made the award to a sole supplier.
Darshan Khalsa was placed in charge of initiating and implementing his employer's portion
of the contract for computer procurement, configuration and delivery. At the first meeting
of the new and former contract providers with Kodak project leaders, it became apparent
that all parties were in competitive conflict with each other and that Kodak's stated goal
of a smooth transition in six months to the new suppliers was in serious jeopardy due to a
high level of mutual distrust.
After the first meeting, Khalsa requested Kodak to participate in a planning meeting
hosted by his organization for all the new suppliers. Using storyboarding as a means of
organizing group ideas and issues, Khalsa facilitated a day-long partnering workshop that
developed rapport among the different teams, identified common goals and objectives,
surfaced potential business process conflicts and cost drivers, and set action items for
the next meeting. The workshop was so successful that Khalsa continued as the primary
facilitator and Kodak adopted all the methodologies that Khalsa subsequently introduced
for facilitating project meetings and tracking progress toward issues resolution.
By the fourth month, the six-month transition was on schedule and Kodak determined that
detailed process documentation was needed. Khalsa's proposal to facilitate the necessary
business process mapping sessions was accepted and a member of Kodak's business process
reengineering department was assigned full-time so that Khalsa's methodologies could be
adopted for future Kodak projects. A series of day-long business process reengineering
meetings were facilitated by Khalsa for three weeks during which a cross section of
personnel involved in all aspects of the PC lifecycle processes, including end user
groups, were engaged in identifying the revised business process flows and any problem
areas. Khalsa facilitated supplemental meetings to resolve problems where necessary.
The methodologies that Khalsa introduced to Kodak caught the attention of the CIO, who
determined that in future Kodak would use this approach for all its projects.
As mandated by Kodak, all PC procurement activities and systems were switched to
the new suppliers over a weekend at the six-month deadline, and everything worked. The
transition was a success and Kodak eventually renewed the two-year contract worth $60
million annually. Kodak became a showcase account and leading reference for the company in
building its Fortune 500 customer base.
Team Building at Southwestern Bell
Methodologies: Team building, partnering, customer service training,
conflict resolution, negotiation
Southwestern Bell is one of the Regional Bell Operating Companies, headquartered in St
Louis, Missouri, and one of the world's largest telecommunications companies.
In 1995, Darshan Khalsa's employer had won a multiple-year contract worth $40 million
annually to provide personal computer procurement services to Southwestern Bell. The
company had placed a sales and order processing team of fifteen people in an office inside
Southwestern Bell headquarters building. After six months due to management and business
process problems, that team soon found itself with a three-month order backlog, loss of
all future orders and several million dollars in disputed accounts receivable that the
client refused to pay.
On the day that Southwestern Bell threatened to terminate its contract, Khalsa was asked
by his employer to transition the relationship with Southwestern Bell into a successful
partnership.
Working on-site at Southwestern Bell headquarters, Khalsa assessed the situation and
determined that the business process and team management problems were potentially
solvable and that Southwestern Bell executives were willing to build a partnership with
their supplier. Khalsa coached, reorganized and expanded the team, improved operational
processes, and negotiated new order processing and accounts receivable reconciliation
procedures within both companies. Khalsa conducted customer service training for the order
processing team that dramatically improved customer satisfaction, facilitated team
building sessions, and conducted creative problem solving meetings with many levels within
both organizations. Within three weeks, the order backlog and disputed accounts receivable
were eliminated and the client agreed to resume placing future orders. Over the next two
months, new team management was hired and a new automated order tracking system designed
by Khalsa was implemented.
Customer service dramatically improved and the group was awarded renewal of its
annual contract worth $40 million. Khalsa received his employer's Associate of the Quarter
Award in 1996 for this work with the Southwestern Bell account.
Problem Solving at Carlson Companies
Methodologies: Conflict resolution, problem solving, partnering, business process
reengineering, continuous improvement process
Carlson Companies, headquartered in Minneapolis, Minnesota is one of the world's largest
travel companies. In the mid-1990's, Khalsa's employer won a multi-year contract to
provide personal computer procurement and deployment services to Carlson headquarters and
had placed on-site over two dozen order processing personnel and service technicians.
In late 1996, due to advances in PC technology, what had once been a highly profitable and
fairly efficient operation for Khalsa's employer as the product and service provider
abruptly fell apart when Carlson's multitude of proprietary software applications began
conflicting with the new standard Microsoft operating systems bundled with every new
personal computer ordered by Carlson and configured and installed on-site by the service
provider. Customer satisfaction suddenly plummeted, operational costs soared and tensions
mounted. Within three months the situation had became so acute that Darshan Khalsa was
called in to salvage the account, with the power to make any changes necessary within his
company to rectify the situation.
After conducting a series of problem solving meetings, several key areas were determined
to be of highest priority:
Reporting directly to the Carlson CIO, Khalsa facilitated partnering, conflict
resolution and business process reengineering meetings involving all stakeholders,
established a single point of contact for customer complaints, revised work order
processes, contracted for the reprogramming of the service provider's field service
dispatch system to match received inventory with field service work orders and to capture
service technician billing detailed activities and delays, reorganized the order
processing team, and negotiated the redefinition of billable field service activities to
reflect the increased costs of reconfiguring personal computers to work properly with
Carlson proprietary software.
Within two months, customer complaints were eliminated and the situation had
improved so significantly that Carlson agreed to continue doing business with the service
provider.
Electronic Commerce at PricewaterhouseCoopers
Methodologies: Project management, IT systems integration, partnering, business
process reengineering
In late 1997, the global consulting firm Price Waterhouse was in the process of merging
with former competitor Coopers & Lybrand, to become PricewaterhouseCoopers. The
centralized Purchasing division of Price Waterhouse was a pioneer in seeking to deploy an
easy to use Internet-based electronic requisitioning and procurement system accessible by
all U.S. field and office personnel that would be capable of handling electronic catalogs
of multiple commodities including computers and office supplies.
Price Waterhouse requested Khalsa's employer to create an electronic commerce
system for computer products and services already being purchased under contract
from one of the company's resellers at the rate of $40 million per year for eventual deployment
to thousands of PricewaterhouseCoopers associates after the merger was completed. Khalsa
served in his typical capacity as design architect and project leader for this engagement.
Over a period of several months, Khalsa worked with Price Waterhouse personnel and
company programmers to document business processes, reengineer operational procedures,
integrate legacy computer systems via Electronic Data Interchange standards, and build a
user-friendly Internet electronic requisition approval and procurement system based on IBM Websphere to meet the needs of PricewaterhouseCoopers field and office personnel.
The electronic purchasing approach was adopted by the new merged organization
as a result of these efforts, and the electronic commerce system was successfully deployed
to PricewaterhouseCoopers in 1998.
Problem Solving at
Organizations Small, Medium and Large
Methodologies: Strategic planning, problem solving, conflict resolution, team
building, business process reengineering, project management
Khalsa has worked with diverse organizations of all sizes to solve business problems and
unite groups with conflicting points of view to work together to implement creative
solutions. He typically works with all levels of an organization to identify common goals,
purposes and actions.
Here are some examples:
Conducted strategic planning for health clinics to remove obstacles to growth and
resolve interpersonal problems with "profound" results.
Led strategic visioning for real estate management company.
Conducted group problem solving sessions for improved account penetration by sales and
service teams.
Conducted planning sessions for a world music recording artist to achieve lifetime
career goals.
Coordinated growth planning strategy planning for a small division that grew
twenty-fold in the following year.
Conducted strategic planning sessions for software company.
Led teambuilding and improved communications among four unrelated divisions of a
conglomerate.
Facilitated multicultural church group in building trust to undertake major facilities
expansion.
Improved communication among team members and improved business processes between
supply chain partners.
Facilitated partnering workshop for internet commerce software development of a
research department.
Conducted visioning session for nonprofit organization to set multi-year agenda.
Improved order processing and employee training for wholesale distributor.
Conducted priority planning session for global energy technology company IT department.
Conducted problem solving workshop for petrochemical company IT department.
Developed a war room that improved client project management by a global computer
services organization.
Facilitated transition of technical services during bank merger.
Reorganized customer service group for a major financial institution.
